Great strides have been made in recent years in the art of laser processing of materials. Lasers have many advantages over conventional techniques, such as, for example, traditional mechanical approaches used for machining, such as drilling a hole using a drill bit or shaping a material with a rotating end mill. One readily apparent advantage is that a laser process does not include a machine tool that will wear out and need to be refurbished or replaced. There are myriad other advantages known to those of ordinary skill in the art. Processing a work material with a laser can include, by way of example and not limitation, machining, cutting, marking, printing, drilling, ablating, vaporizing, heat treating, such as hardening or annealing, as well as many other operations.
Many types of lasers are known to be useful for the laser processing of materials, such as, for example, gas lasers (e.g., CO2 lasers), bulk solid state lasers (e.g. Nd-YAG lasers) and fiber lasers. Of the types of lasers, fiber lasers in particular have significant advantages. Fiber lasers can have a smaller footprint on a factory floor, can more be efficient, and can have less onerous cooling requirements. Fiber lasers can also provide better laser beam quality (e.g., better M2 factor) than other types of lasers. Fiber lasers have been steadily increasing in power output, and can have power outputs in the kW and multi kW range.
Although much progress has been made in the area of laser processing of materials, problems remain and opportunities for improvement are present. For example, it is always desirable to improve a particular process such that it is faster, more accurate or more efficient (e.g., more efficient in terms of energy consumption or input material consumption, such as conditioning gases or sintering powder delivered to the laser processing site). Laser processing can involve secondary processes not necessarily involved in more traditional material processing, such as, for example, the creation of a plasma in the environment local to the interaction of the laser beam and the work material. The secondary processes can create problems as well as opportunities for improvement.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present disclosure to address one or more of the disadvantages or drawbacks of the art of laser processing of a work material.